When Cat Bordhi became a grandmother earlier this year, I knew that more baby-sized things would sneak into her sock-design repertoire. Sure enough, her most recent creation is a special sock for her grandson Charlie. The kicker? It's not supposed to be worn at all. Rather, it'll be hung by the chimney with care as Charlie welcomes his first Christmas.

Cat being Cat, this is no ordinary stocking. It uses a disproportionate waste yarn technique to create multiple tiers of pouches in the arch expansion area. And you can use this same technique for all sorts of things that need not have anything to do with holidays or stockings.

Departures
I'm sad to report that we lost two important figures in the knitting community this month. Mary Walker Phillips passed away on November 3rd at the age of 83. The legendary knitter was a fellow on the American Craft Council and had works residing in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

And on November 16th, the online knitting community lost Gail McHugh. She was the longtime voice of reason and clarity as moderator of KnitU and founder of the Knit_Design list. Both will be dearly missed, and their contributions not soon forgotten.